Comforter
by TheYoungTimpani
Summary: Tony and Ziva are together the night of a big storm. Ziva is affected in a way that Tony was not expecting and it breaks his heart. Fluffy and Tiva.
1. Shelter in the Storm

**Chapter 1 of 2**

**Shelter in the Storm**

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**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters.

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**Author's Note: **Hey, I know I really need to go work on my real story...but I'm stuck.

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Tony stepped out the door to make a phone call and was met by oppressing humidity. It was only early-February, but the weather felt like mid-spring.

"Yeah, Boss?" Tony asked into the cell phone.

"_DiNozzo, you two are going to need to stay in position for one more day," Gibbs said on the other end._

"Why? What happened? I thought you got the guy?" Tony scratched the back of his neck. He and Ziva had been sent to monitor an apartment where a suspected serial killer had been staying. Earlier that day Gibbs and McGee caught the man and now he was telling them that they had to stay.

"_Yeah, we got 'em. But you're staying where you're at, got it?" Gibbs said with no room for question._

"Yeah, yeah, alright, Boss," Tony complied with a sigh.

"_Don't worry about setting up the surveillance tonight."_

"What's going on, Boss?" Tony asked, confused.

"_Don't question me, DiNozzo."_

Tony sighed again, Gibbs hung up and he snapped his own phone shut. He leaned across the rail and looked out to the quickly darkening western sky.

He stood there for a while before he returned to the apartment that NCIS was renting for the purpose of watching the apartment across the street. He and Ziva had been here for three days now. It had been boring as hell and Ziva had made him sleep on the couch. It sucked.

Tony walked back into the apartment and almost ran into Ziva.

"Was that Gibbs?" she asked, standing very close to him.

"Yeah," Tony replied, subconsciously taking a small step back.

"When can we leave?"

"Tomorrow."

"But I thought they caught the guy, why can't we leave?"

"He wouldn't say."

She turned and went to the couch that Tony had been forced to spend the night on, he followed and sat down next to her.

They sat closer than most people would have and not through any conscious effort, they just did. That was how they had been for years.

"At least we don't have to watch the apartment any more," Tony replied, leaning back against the arm of the couch. Without thinking about what she was doing, Ziva leaned up against him; he didn't question it, though.

Tony reached down and picked up the remote, turning the television on. The evening news was on and a weatherman was talking about storms moving into the area. Tony felt Ziva tense up beside him, but thought nothing of it. He changed the channels until he found a rerun of _Family Guy._

"Hey, I like this one!" Tony grinned, "This is the one where Lois wants to enter someone in a piano contest and Peter wins a tour of the Pawtucket Patriot brewery, which is a total _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory _parody, but he breaks a rule and gets kicked out. He comes home drunk and starts playing the piano amazingly_, _but in the morning when he's sober, he sucks. He can only play while he's drunk, but Lois-"

"Who are these people?" Ziva asked, looking at him with an look of amused confusion.

Tony then launched into a full explanation of everything about _Family Guy_and Ziva just watched him, amazed at his rants.

Several hours, and countless episodes of various cartoons, later; Ziva got up and went to bed.

Tony suddenly felt cold and very alone in the room. The spot on his chest that Ziva had vacated tingled with loss.

He went to put on some pajamas and lied down on the couch to watch some more TV.

Sometime during the third episode of an all-night marathon of _The Simpsons_, a loud crash made Tony jump off the couch. Soon a roar encompassed the small apartment and Tony went to the window.

Outside, the trees were bending backwards in the strong wind, the rain was coming down so heavy that it looked like a solid sheet of water, lightning was splitting the sky at an almost constant rate, and the roll of thunder seemed to continue on forever.

Tony went over to the TV and switched it to a local channel. A little warning box was up on the corner of the screen. The entire area was under a tornado watch, parts of the area were under severe thunderstorm warnings, a bright red square alarmed Tony. Once he realized where it was at, it made him feel a little better. There was a tornado warning for a place in southern Maryland, the storms were moving northeast, they were safe here in DC.

He turned the TV down and decided to get some sleep. The thunder stopped for a moment and Tony heard a strange sound coming from Ziva's room. He was worried; he had often suspected that she didn't sleep well. He went to her room to check on her.

He pushed the door open enough to look inside, what he saw made his heart sink a little.

Ziva was in the middle of the bed curled up into a tight ball...and she was sobbing.

Tony couldn't stand it. He went over to her and sat down on the bed.

She felt the bed dip and knew it was Tony, but she didn't look up. His arms wrapped around her and she allowed him to pull her closer to him; she rolled over and began to sob into his shirt.

He whispered to her, "Hey, hey, it's okay. It's just a storm. No big deal. Come on, ninja. Just a little storm. It'll be okay. I'm here. I've gotcha."

She kept sobbing but pulled away from his shoulder and looked at him and said, "Thanks, Tony."

"Yeah, no problem. You wanna talk about it?" he asked soothingly.

"It's just...I don't...I do not like storms," she sobbed.

He reached out to hold her again and she let him. She buried herself in his shoulder and mumbled against his neck, "The thunder reminds me...of the...the bomb that..." she couldn't even finish her sentence.

"The bomb that killed Tali?" he asked softly, rubbing her back in a comforting manner. He felt her nod.

"You want me to stay?" he asked.

She nodded again.

He reached down to pull up the covers and felt something soft. He pulled out a teddy bear dressed in a little Washington Redskins hoodie. "Hey, I remember this," he smiled, bringing the bear back up to her, "This is the bear that I won for you when we all went to Six Flags, isn't it?"

She nodded and smiled a sad smile.

"Did you name it?" he asked.

"Name it? Tony, I am not six."

"You have to name it. That's just how it works. Think of a good one," he smiled at her.

"Mendel, short for Menachem. It means 'comforter', is that good enough?"

"Mendel?" he asked, looking at the bear, "Really? What kind of name is 'Mendel'?" he teased.

She jerked the bear out of his hands and stroked the soft fuzz on the bear, "I think it's a great name. Don't you Mendel?...I thought so," she smiled at Tony.

He shook his head at her and said, "You know, I really like you like this...not that I don't like you the rest of the time, but I really like it when you let go and relax. You aren't like this enough," he ran a hand through her hair.

"You still want me to stay?" he asked.

Before she had a chance to answer, thunder shook the apartment again and she jumped back against Tony's chest. She didn't have to answer, he knew where he needed to be.

He wrapped his arms tightly around her and rolled over onto his back. She rolled with him and was lying with her head rested on his chest.

A few rumbles of thunder later and he heard her sobbing again. He began to rub her back and whisper to her. He told stories that she knew were nothing more than complete crap, but she loved the feeling of someone there to comfort her.

Finally her sobs stopped, Tony stayed awake until he was absolutely sure that she was sound asleep and then he allowed himself to fall asleep as well.

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**A.N.: **So, I was trying to sleep through a storm last night and I got to thinking that there's a serious Tiva potential in a storm. The next morning I drew up some notes and TA-DA! Here's the story.

No, there's no significance to the case. I just needed to justify the situation a little bit. There's nothing to read into about the case.

Yeah, I really have a bear like that one. I "won" (no one else was playing) it at a game in Six Flags when our school band went to Washington DC. His name is Vincent and my friend, Keri, has one just like it named Gregory. Keri's brother, Jordon, went with me to Model U.N. and was talking and said, "Oh! I meant to bring Gregory!" and I was like, "I was _so _going to bring Vincent!"...it was strange...you'd had to have been there, I guess. *I misspelled Jordon's name! I had to fix that*

I'm going to write one more chapter of this and then I swear, I'll work on _Roles Reversed_.

Please review!


	2. Simple and Clean

**Chapter 2 of 2**

**Simple and Clean**

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**Disclaimer:** I don't own it.

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**Author's Note: **Thanks for reading, here's the last chapter.

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"_Hold me_

_Whatever lies beyond this morning_

_Is a little later on_

_Regardless or warning_

_The future doesn't scare me at all_

_Nothing's like before"_

_- Utada Hikaru: Simple and Clean_

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Tony woke up the next morning and wasn't surprised to find the bed empty. The sun was shining in through the window and he could hear the shower running and Ziva humming quietly over the water.

He stretched out in the bed, feeling better than he had in a long time.

He stood up and walked across the floor and out onto a small balcony. His toes squished in the wet doormat and he scrunched his nose and jumped off the rug, leaning against the rail. Ziva walked up behind him and put her arms around his waist, he turned to look at Ziva, "You feeling better this morning?"

She smiled up at him, "You didn't have to do that."

He chuckled a little, "But I did."

She put her head up against his chest and he gave her a strange look, "What's your deal?"

"Just nice to know that someone cares about me."

"Lots of people care about you, Ziva. Everybody that you work with, we all care about you."

"It's different."

"What's different?"

"I don't know...don't you think something feels different?" she looked up at him, studying his face.

"...Something... feels different?...I guess so...I mean, I don't care about you like I care about Probie, or Ducky, or the Boss...but...Yeah...something's different, I guess..." he thought out loud.

"Yeah, something's different," she smiled.

They looked at each other for a moment before she leaned up on her toes and gave him a light kiss on the lips.

"That _was_ different," he smiled.

"I thought so," she smiled.

They kept looking at each other for a moment before Tony picked Ziva up and swung her around to his other side. When she looked at him strangely he replied, "That rug felt gross."

She smiled up at him then turned to look over the rail.

He kept an arm around her waist as she scanned the sky and surrounding landscape.

"I love the color of the sky the morning after a storm. It's so perfect. You could never replicate that color," he said, nuzzling into her hair.

She took a deep breath, "I enjoy the smell after a storm. It smells clean."

"So do you," he laughed into her hair.

She laughed, "We just can't have a serious conversation, can we?"

Tony's cell phone rang inside the apartment and they reluctantly parted.

She stood out on the balcony, leaning against the rail, watching Tony on the phone inside the room.

He came back out and she asked, "Gibbs?"

"Yeah, they're sending a car to come get us. He still wouldn't tell me why they kept us here last night."

"I'm glad they did," she replied.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. If we hadn't had to stay here, I would have been at home alone during the storm. I'm really glad that we stayed," she smiled at him.

"You know why I'm glad we stayed?" he asked.

"What's that?"

"Because if we hadn't stayed together last night, you would have killed me for doing this," he smiled before he leaned down and kissed her.

This kiss was quite a bit more passionate than their first one had been. They broke apart, smiling.

"You doing anything tonight?" he asked.

"No, do you want to?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to come over and maybe watch some movies at my place?"

"As in a date?" she asked with a teasing smile.

"Well...yeah."

"Are you asking me to date you? Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" she kept smiling.

"Geez, David, what is this? Twenty Questions?" he rolled his eyes.

"You are avoiding the question."

"What do you want me to say?"

"The truth. Are you wanting romantic commitment or close friendship or what?"

"Can I have more than one?" he asked, looking pained.

"What?"

"Yeah, I want you to keep being my best friend, but...I...guess I'd really like for you to be my girlfriend, too..." he mumbled, not breaking eye contact.

She smiled and leaned in for a quick kiss before saying, "So, I am your girlfriend and we are dating, yes?"

"If that's what you want, absolutely," he grinned back.

She gave him a quick kiss, grabbed his shoulder spun him around and said, "Go shower before Gibbs arrives," and playfully slapped his butt.

When he got to the door, he turned around and looked at her with a smile on his face.

"What?" she asked, looking confused.

"Just thinking about how beautiful you are," he said with a big grin.

She rolled her eyes and pointed at the door, "Go!" she demanded, laughing.

He obliged with a big mock-pout.

Ziva looked out over the city and smiled.

She knew that she would probably never get over her fear of storms, but she couldn't deny that this one was one of the best moments in her life.

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**A.N.: **Yeah, that is the song from the video game _Kingdom Hearts_...

I put a quote up there hoping that it would get me back in the mood to write _Roles Reversed_.

I don't think the ending quite came out the way I wanted it to and a lot of it was just spacefiller, but you know...I tend to be overly critical of my own writing.

Kinda cheesy, but its a fluff so I can get away with that, right?

*Yeah, I read this thing through and was angry about the typos...so...yeah...*

Please review!


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